


Game Shop Sketch

by wreathed



Category: British Comedy RPF
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, Ficlet, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 04:45:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10378701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed
Summary: For the prompt: David tries to convince Robert to help him write a sketch featuring a thinly-concealed Charlie Brooker.





	

“Ok, so. OK. A man, no, a woman. No, a man. He’s a journalist. Not a journalist, he works in a shop. A shop selling video games. And he’s really grumpy, but it’s funny, obviously.”

“And which one of us would be playing this curmudgeonly shop assistant?” Rob asks.

“Actually, I was thinking neither of us,” David says. “Maybe... Charlie Brooker?”

“Charlie Brooker,” Rob says flatly.

“Yeah.” David says. He realises he’s got his hands clenched tightly together, but it’s too late to put a stop to that now.

“He’s not even an actor,” Rob says. It’s a fair point.

David opens his mouth to respond before he’s really had time to think about it. “He will act if I–”

“Yeah?” Rob says, along with a raise of his eyebrows.

“…if I ask him nicely.”

“How are you going to ask him nicely?”

“I’ll email him,” David says, frowning to try and get Rob to put his eyebrows back down. “I’ll send him a nice email. Got to write the thing first though. Come on, I’m sure it’ll work out fine.”

“OK, so what’s the joke?”

“Sorry?”

“Well, at the moment you’ve got a man working in a shop and a customer coming into the shop. I mean, that’s the set-up of many excellent sketches, but I’d argue it needs to be taken a little further.”

“You said!” – David points his finger at Rob accusingly – “that there were no bad ideas at this stage! What if that’s all there is to it? Man walks into a shop, so, ha, you thought there was going to be a joke, but no! There isn’t!”

“I don’t know whether that’s going to work.” 

“OK,” David says, now feeling slightly panicked. “What if the joke is that… the meaner he is to the customer, the more the customer is grateful to him. He’s trying to piss the customer off, but nothing works.”

“And which one of us would play the customer? Rob says in a very, very even tone.

“I mean,” David begins. “It _could_ be you. There’s nothing to stop it being you.”

“But you were thinking you,” Rob says, now grinning at David in an unfortunate sort of way.

“Perhaps,” David says.

“Punchline?” Rob says.

“Maybe, at the end of the sketch, the customer is so pleased he does something really awkward like... kisses him?”

“It’s funny because psychological masochism?” Rob ventures.

“No! Just, that’s probably the natural conclusion.”

“I don’t know – kissing people’s more my area, isn’t it?” Rob says, but David can see Rob’s still smiling.

“I have kissed people, Rob,” David finds himself saying crossly. “I have kissed people in the past and I will do so again.”

“David. If you want to work with Charlie more, just ask him. I’m sure he’d be delighted to have you.”

David feel his cheeks colour and looks away.

“I’ll have a think about it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let's say this is set 2010-ish.
> 
> This prompt was from an anon meme that closed six years ago. #chaseyourdreams


End file.
